Wright aware of Southend threat

Defender Joe Wright is aware of the threat that Southend United pose as Rovers travel to Roots Hall in Sky Bet League One.

Saturday’s trip to the Essex coast is the Rovers’ first game in a fortnight following last weekend’s postponement against Bury, and Wright knows that they’re in for a tough return to action.

“Southend are on a good run after their new manager came in, and they only lost their first game under Chris Powell last week, so it’ll be a tough game, they’re an in-form team and we will be ready for it,” Wright said.

“They’re good on the counter, it’s a difficult pitch to play on so it might be a case of trying to defend and then looking to break from there.

“If we could get another Ben Whiteman hat-trick that’d be nice, we want another performance like the one back in October, a nice comfortable win would be nice, but we will prepare well for it.”

This weekend’s game with the Shrimpers is the first of 11 between now and the end of the season, and Wright is hopeful that Rovers can finish the campaign strong.

“We didn’t want to be in the position we were at the start of the season, we are a young team and it’s just about learning about the league and developing as a team and we are learning from our mistakes and that’s something we will improve next year,” he said.

“Just a couple more wins could see us over the line, but we take every game as it comes now, we just need to turn a few draws into wins.

“We came up from League Two last year, and this is a completely different squad to the one that was in League One the last time, so for a lot of us it is a new experience and we’ve been adapting and hopefully we can use that and crack on next season.”